“That’s it! Now quick, hold this arm down! Do it! Here, just sit on him!”
Swaying and trembling with each violent seizure, the two women struggled to control him while the springs of the old cot sang in loud protest.
Night insects fluttered and ticked against the window, and he found himself listening for the leathern beat of giant wings. An open can of beer in front of him, he just sat at the dining-room table and fought the sourness in his stomach. Then he put one hand on the telephone. Ring marks covered the table’s dusty surface, and the handmade doily in the center had yellowed. His pipe rested in a cut-glass bowl, the red cinders slowly turning gray.
“Ambulance.” She answered on the first ring. “Yeah, this is Doris. Hey, Steve, how you doing?” Her voice sounded odd, and he could picture her cradling the phone with her shoulder while she lit a cigarette. “No, she headed home a while ago, Steve. I’m here by myself, just drawing up the duty roster for next week. Should’ve done it earlier, but Athena needed to talk. What? Yeah, that’s what I figured too. I’m not gonna let her work for a while. She can answer the phone or something. We’ve got a couple new people starting anyway. Listen, Steve, you didn’t call to ask me about the rig. What can I do for you?”
“Right.” He took a deep gulp of beer, the foam gurgling down his throat. “Doris?” He smashed the can and tossed it toward the overflowing wastebasket. “You saw Lonny. Right? I mean, you examined the body and everything? What did it look like to you? Hello?”
“Dogs,” she said at last. “About the other one, the hard hat, I don’t know. But Lonny was all chewed up.”
They listened to each other breathe.
“So?” she asked. “What do we do now?”
“Goddamn middle of the night. Ain’t even awake yet.”
“You want some of this coffee? Duke’s wife made it.” A uniformed trooper passed around the thermos.
“Not enough sugar.” Loosely grouped around the blue and white cars, nine troopers loitered just off the sand road. Nearby, their superior called questions into a radio.
One of the troopers gulped coffee out of the thermos lid, then spoke in a low voice. “How many guys they got out here?”
“Four other groups, I heard,” his buddy replied. “Ten guys each.” He hefted his special-issue shotgun. “When you think we’re gonna get started?”
“Soon’s it gets a little lighter, I guess.”
He’d passed her mailbox ten minutes down the road. Now he gazed up at the astonishing house. Tunneled by termites, it tilted and sloped. He barely glanced at the green things sprouting through the back steps, barely noticed the patches of raw board warping in the sun. His footsteps, drumming across the porch, were echoed by hammerings from within the house. The screen door was off the hinges and leaning against the porch wall, so he knocked on the frame. The banging continued.
“Hullo?”
Athena stopped pounding and turned around in surprise. “Oh, hello.” She smiled a bit awkwardly. “Steven. Almost didn’t recognize you in civilian clothes.” She set the hammer down on the table and brushed at her clothing. “I didn’t hear you drive up.”
“I went around to the front of the house.” He stood self-consciously in the doorway, finding the kitchen dark after the glare. “I take it you’ve got some of the rooms shut.”
“The floors are rotten. In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t fall through the front porch.” Brushing off plaster dust, she looked at him in confusion, wondering if she should understand his presence here. “Oh, I’m sorry. Can I get you some coffee? Come on in.”
“No. I mean, no coffee, thank you, but I’ll come in for a minute, maybe.” He took a few hesitant steps into the kitchen. “What were you doing?”
She picked up the hammer again. “Some of the boards over the windows looked a little loose.”
“That to keep something out or something in?” Startled by loud giggling, he spun around. A plump blonde with plastic barrettes in her hair loomed in the doorway. She held one hand over her mouth, her face going deep red at the sight of him.
“This is my sister-in-law, Pamela Monroe,” said Athena with evident reluctance. “Pamela, this is Barry’s partner.” She peered out the back door. “Where’s Matthew?”
“Well, hello now.” Pam still giggled like a five-year-old, though the flesh around her eyes was swollen and bruised looking. “So nice to…We sure don’t see too many people out here, ’cept for them pineys.”
“Pamela, where’s Matthew? I thought I told you to stay with him.”
“He’s over that way somewheres.” Pam shrugged. “Playing with Chabwok.”
“If you can’t watch him, I want him inside. I have to leave soon anyway.”
“Oh, but he’s just right there.” Complaining under her breath, Pam wandered back outside. “I’ll get him.”
“This is the wife of the man who was killed? She seems to be taking it okay. What did she say? Chabwok? What’s that, an Indian name or something?”
“’Thena, I just want to tell you one thing.” Pam stuck her head back in the doorway. “If you want…I know you want me to watch Matty and all, but I just want to tell you this. I can’t find Dooley anywheres, and he wasn’t around for breakfast neither. That’s all I wanted to tell you.”
When she withdrew, he asked, “Is Dooley your dog?”
“More or less.”
“Then you better find him and keep him in the house. That’s why I wanted, I mean, the reason I stopped by was to tell you the state troopers are hunting the dogs.”
“Oh?” Suddenly, she became aware of the condition of the kitchen. Dirty pots covered the stove, and newspapers were spread on the floor around the sink. To keep him from looking around, she stepped closer to him.
“Yeah.” Confused, he backed away from her, out onto the porch. “They’re down that direction now.” He pointed toward the woods.
“That’s something, anyway.” Following him as far as the doorway, she raised one hand against the sunlight. “Or don’t you believe me either?”
He shuffled his big feet. “Feels like you got another weak spot.”
Silence.
“In the floor,” he added, avoiding her eyes. “You should do something about it. Place could fall down.”
“No such luck.”
He let out a sigh. “I’m not sure what I believe anymore. I can’t find what could connect those two deaths. Is it possible…? Could your brother-in-law have been involved in an attempt to steal what looked like an abandoned car? An attempt that somehow ended up…?”
She stared at him with sad disbelief.
“How long has this screen door been down like this? House must get full of bugs. Hinges look all right.” Moving quickly, he dragged the door loudly across the porch, stood it upright. “Where’s that hammer you had? Are there nails?” He pushed past her into the kitchen.
“Uh, yes…in that can…there. Wait, you don’t have to…”
Smiling and humming, he started hammering the door back onto the old iron hinges. “Quite a house.”
She gave a laugh. “Thanks. It’s a little big and pretty ugly, but we hate it. You don’t have to do that,” she repeated over the banging. “I’ve been meaning to get to it myself for—”
